Some struggles of an independent filmmaker

The part of adventures that the books never show is the frustrating things that aren’t trolls or goblins. Things like my own natural bent to get completely distracted, or a lack of fellows to do battle with. Those moments are hard to write because the turmoil isn’t in the dirt with teeth bared and swords clashing, its in the mind of the hero. In my own story I’m at a place where I’m pretty beat up and trying to reorient myself.

I love being distracted. Especially by video games. They are easy when life seems hard. Instant action, adventure, fun, all at the touch of a button. I used to play them all the time. Like, wake and bake but instead of weed it was Warcraft. God’s done a lot of work in me and I’ve come a long way, weaning myself off of the fantasy life they provide and learning to live amongst the masses. I’m learning how life is a grand adventure, each day revealing something new, even if its just a teensy, tiny little thing. But when I feel like I have nowhere else to go it’s so easy for me to fall back into old habits. And while I think video games can be a great relaxation tool I have discovered that they are incredibly destructive to creating things. When I play it becomes exponentially harder for me to write. And if I’m not writing then I can’t film. And if I’m not filming then what the heck am I doing?!

Another thing I’m starting to realize is that I need a partner, someone who is also trying to do well in this industry. I follow a few young film crews on youtube and twitter and they all have one thing in common: they all have at least two people. And I can totally see why: when you’re in an industry like this, where your project needs other people for it to even exist, you can expect a lot of extra work when you are by yourself. I’m not trying to use this as an excuse. I think I can do a lot more. But having a partner would be so great. Especially if they were good with special effects or sound tech. The main reason this is a problem for me is because of my natural bent to get distracted. I say, “Man, I have a great idea but I don’t have the people to make it happen.” So I log on and get a new high score.

The other thing is the worries of life. This is probably the one thing that keeps most people from chasing their dreams. Bills, work, money, these things are part of life, and they are important. But they should never have to keep us from doing what we were built to do. My schedule is crazy because I don’t work a set 9-5. Sometimes I work in the morning, sometimes at night, sometimes right in the middle of the day. I need to work because I need the money, and my managers pressure me into being ridiculously flexible with my available work hours lest I don’t work at all. Which is dumb because they give those who don’t work as hard a normal set of hours. But that’s a work rant and doesn’t belong here. With a crazy schedule like that I have time to work on film things, but it’s easy for me to say “Bah, I’m tired, and I would have to do this over a period of days instead of all at once, so I’ll just wait to do it.”

Right now I’m still trying to figure things out. I hope I can help out other young filmmakers someday with any wisdom I might get from this.

I do know that the answer is determination. Video games become less of an obstacle if I resolve to spend my time writing instead of lazing I will get so much more done. Which is where the adventure comes in. Adventures always have a goal and there are obstacles in the way of that goal. The story is how the hero gets around those obstacles. If I keep my mind on the goal then life becomes more adventurous, as I see things and go “No way bro I want that!” putting aside the lesser things for the greater. I think a lot of people, including myself, crumble when opposition is great. We lose sight of our goal because we focus on all the things standing in our way. If I’ve learned anything from Jesus it’s that there’s always a way. The goal is already mine, I just have to get to it. It’s a hard road because it requires a lot of sacrifice. I love video games, but if they hinder me then they gotta go. If I have to break my back to work all day so I can afford to live, then forsake some rest so I can film, then that’s what needs to happen. (notice I said some rest. No rest is a terrible idea and will leave you worse off than you started. ALWAYS take your rest!)

Even with resolve things are hard. I still don’t know what to do or how things will look, but as long as I have the goal in mind I’ll be ok.

Onward!

And so it begins, some more.

After the punch fiasco went down we took it easy for a few weeks. Both of us were working, trying to get the hang of this post-college life. Sometimes I would go hang out with the kids at the center, play around some, fail miserably at getting them to do any homework. Things were moving slow. In my mind we had been there two weeks, why had no one become a Christian yet? Why have we only met children? It wasn’t hard to figure out though. I had come from a ministry that was all about producing people, very fast rate stuff. That was also in an atmosphere where people were only there for 4 month blocks of time, so we had to work fast (or so I thought at the time). I was in real life now, where people live their daily lives and it’s not as normal to knock on doors and introduce yourself to them. Things take time in the real world, so chill.

Mrs. Diane came to us with a great idea: Sunday dinners. We could host them and invite our neighbors. What a great way to meet people! We agreed. The first sunday dinner comes and its a nice showing. Mrs. Diane brought some children from the center and some of the people who were originally on board to help us change the atmosphere of Hudson-Dockett. Everyone brought a dish and we had a great time. Somehow we had managed to obtain a butt ton of Twinkies, which are nasty, so we gave some to the kids. Kids love nasty food. Everyone left and we were settling down, talking about how cool that had been, what a great start to something this could be, when there was a knock at the door. I open it to see five kids, none of whom had been at the dinner.

“May I help you?” I asked.

“Can we have some candy?!”

What? Who are these kids? But being white I felt a need to over compensate so I gave them all some twinkies. I just need to say we had to cut this off when kids starting trying to beat our door down at 7 in the morning so they could get some candy before school. Homie don’t play that.

We kept up the sunday dinners for a few months. At first it was a lot of older people from Mrs. Diane’s church, a handful of college kids, and three siblings, Najik, Sarah, and Tessa. A month in and most of the adults had quit showing up. When they had been there it was easy to settle everyone down and do something, like Bible study or some singing, but once they were gone and we were outnumbered by children you could forget it. Mike was working with a lot of college students at the time so he recruited them to come check things out. This happened for about a month, then even Mrs. Diane stopped showing up. But Najik and his sisters were faithful and true, showing up every sunday, as well as all the other days.

I want to end this one with some thoughts on the faithfulness of people. They aren’t. Faithful, that is. Most people will come around your ministry until the new wears off, then they’re gone. Expect it to happen, because it will. I’m not trying to be pessimistic, I’m being real with you. If you aren’t ready for it you will be bitter and upset with them, unnecessarily. The other side of the coin is that it may not be right for them, and that’s fine too. College students are preoccupied with getting their grades right, or hanging out with their friends, so they won’t have much time for extra-curricular ministry activity. And adults have families, so unless they are in the core of things it would be unwise to expect them to be as committed as you are.

The sad thing is that most people are just uncommitted to much outside of their own life. Our culture is very fragmented and individualistic, so giving our time to others is seen as high and lofty and a bit too much for the common man. It’s a sad fact that we feel good about spending an afternoon playing with underprivileged kids or helping a neighbor move a couch. Those are small things. Things that other cultures consider part of everyday decency. One of my desires in creating films is to help cultivate the idea that we are here to help each other, wherever and whenever. Here’s to a better day.

 

Onward!

 

Justin

my review of “Monsters”

I believe my post yesterday needs some explanation. It all came after I watched an indie film by the name of “Monsters“. Directed by Gareth Edwards, starring Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able, the movie sells itself as as a sci-fi thriller but never quite makes it to the “thrill”, staying more “still” than anything else.

The setting: Mexico, 6 years after a space probe has crash landed in the northern parts of the country. The probe was carrying an undiscovered life form that found earth to be quite a suitable new home. These creatures quickly inhabited the land and started to spread. They have been quarantined but seem intent on spreading beyond their borders. Scoot McNairy plays a photographer who works for an unnamed magazine. His job: to take pictures of the monsters, or their victims. Whitney Able plays the daughter of the owner of the magazine. She’s been in Mexico and her dad wants her out. McNairy is tasked with her rescue, and through a series of events they must make their way through the “infected zone”.

The Good: This movie has some great CGI. I mean wonderful. The creatures, though you never really see them fully, look and move very realistically. There was a lot of detail put in to creating life-like walls and vehicles that fit in to the story world. The cinematography was great as well, capturing the feel of a world displaced by some new force. And the story world fit with the premise: graffiti and murals of the monsters attacking people were painted all over the ruins of the city. These guys used their budget well.

Whitney Able did an incredible job playing her role. She shows a lot of promise and I would definitely tell anyone to be on the look out for her.

The Bad: Scoot McNairy. I did not like his character, or maybe it was him. I’ll need to watch a few more of his films before I decide. But his character in “Monsters” was poorly written. One minute he would be this jaded photographer who wants nothing to do with the girl, the next he’s all over her like a drunken college boy, throwing out pick up lines and stumbling all over himself. This happens a few times, and he’s not even drunk for the last one.

The story tries to show these two form a romance over the course of their journey but it comes off awkward and unbelievable. It also tacks on some shred of back story to each character that ends up only bogging the story down instead of fleshing it out more.

There are a few somewhat exciting moments where the monsters attack, but you can barely see any of it. The majority of the movie consists of silent shots of the characters sleeping or looking around or walking. I think that’s the downfall of indie films, when they just throw in a lot of filler.

Finally the last big scene of the movie falls flat on its face because there’s really no way to tell what the director was trying to portray. Which is sad because I think it could have been really good.

All in all Monsters is a really good example in building a world through sets and CGI, but not so much in terms of story or character development. And it is definitely not a thriller. I’d say only watch it if you are going to be making movies and you want to see a well developed story world.

Indie films don’t have to feel so…indie…do they?

Yeah yeah I’m back up in this piece! Get ready mother…wait, wrong medium.

So I’m a filmmaker. I want to make great movies. This of course means that I will have to make something often referred to as an “indie film”. I like watching indie films, mostly to get perspective on what kinds of things are possible for low budget films. And there are some really great independent films out there, truly. But more often than not I run into the same problem over and over: that indie feel.

When I talk about the indie feel I’m referring to the almost dry kind of feeling my eyes get while watching. Like when I listen to NPR. Indie movies are…well…boring. Or badly paced…poorly written maybe? But even some of the good ones just feel soooooo…indie!

I don’t really know what it is. But it definitely bugs me. Somehow people in Hollywood can make movies that don’t feel that way at all.

 

Maybe indie films just have too many scenes where people just sit around and look at each other. Which is real, but throws off the pacing of a good movie so quick.

Just some thoughts.

Onward!

What I learned from my first film premiere

As you may know I had the opportunity to cover the Hangover 2 premiere last week, and it was a lot of fun. It was also a lot of frustrating. Totally a learning experience. And since I’ve made the offer to follow me into uncharted territory I must be true to it. So in that spirit gather round as I recant the lessons learned from this adventure.

First, if you are going to a place where you will be interviewing celebrities, always do your research. Mike and I were at a disadvantage because we had no idea who would be showing up, nor had we done much (if any) research before we went. Thankfully we had a great PR rep (which is another lesson: always try to get along with the PR rep) and she was able to guide us around and introduce us to people. But we weren’t able to go much further in our interviews than “What did you think about the movie?” That wasn’t so bad since our feature was about the movie, but in any other situation it would have made for bad press. So always always always try to read up on those you would interview. During the interview if the celebrity doesn’t seem interested, as seen by Sheree Whitfield and her stankface, just stop the interview, thank them, and walk away, because you are wasting their time and your own, and there are more than likely many others who would be glad to give a moments time.

Another thing was that lighting is key. You can see in the video that the image is dark and grainy. At events that take place at night, or after parties (both great places to do interviews) you need a camera that has great low-light capabilities, and even then you will need a light. Just make sure the light doesn’t whitewash everyone in the shot (this was the problem with my camera). You want these people to look good so that they respect your work, opening doors for future connection, and you want their fans to be able to enjoy them without thinking “good lord this is bad footage.”

And finally, get a lot of footage of the event. You want your final video to give a taste of what it was like to be there and entice your audience to keep coming back. So make it fun! Make them want to be at all of your premieres.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this, and if you ever find yourself in a situation like a movie premiere you will have some insight into what to do.

Onward!

The Red Man

[editors note: this really will be an all purpose blog for me, so get used to it! haha but for real, everything will be here. Perhaps I'll figure out how to organize it better someday, but until then you can always use the categories menu over there ---> to filter through things and make it a little easier to navigate. This entry is a fictional account of my fictional run in with the fictional "Red Man". Enjoy]

Did I ever tell you about the Red Man? No, not the old slang term for native americans; this is the Red Man. I’m not sure what he is, or if it’s even a he, but he’s been with me all my life. Why? I don’t know, honestly. I don’t know much about him at all. Is he some kind of guardian, or is he just biding his time until he can do me harm? Or maybe our paths just happen to intersect fairly often. Maybe he is telling someone about me right now.

The first time I ever saw the Red Man was years ago, when I was  very young. I hadn’t even begun school yet. We lived on a farm back then. Our house was on the front of the property, by the road, and from there sprawled acres and acres of fields and pasture and forest. The land was beautiful, still one of my favorite places to think about. Every season brought a different crop, and in the spring the hay would grow thick and green; when the wind blew across it all you could see was green satin rolling across the land.

We had horses in the back. Their pasture was built on an area where all the different features of our land came together, making it quite extraordinary to look at. I loved watching them explode out from the tree line and gallop across the sand and grass. We would walk back there everyday to feed them and clean up the barn. It was on one of these excursions where I first met the Red Man.

My mother and I were walking to the barn when my shoe came untied. She started to re-tie it but I told her I would take care of it. I was a big boy after all, and big boys tie their own shoes. She walked on as I knelt down and recited the poem, something about a rabbit running around a tree. I never quite understood the reference. There was a rustle in the bushes directly in front of me. I looked up to see the most fantastic little man I had ever seen standing before me. His rotund body was engulfed in brilliant red fur, though I was unable to tell if the fur was his own. And his face was at once whimsical and ugly, like a troll from Nordic legend. He raised a finger to his lips and mimed a “shhh” sound, and immediately flew away into the brush.

Our interaction was only a second. It took another second for me to collect my thoughts then I ran to my mother, excited and scared. I tried to explain to her what I saw but she dismissed it, telling me it was probably one of the older boys who lived near us. From that day on I would always look for him to show up again, always to no avail. That was only when I went looking for him though. He had a habit of showing up though, always in the forest, always when he was furthest from my mind. I haven’t seen him since I left for college, maybe because of the lack of forests in this city, but I hope we will cross paths again. Maybe he’ll stop this time, and we can sit and chat, and I’ll ask him why he’s always in such a rush, and he can ask me why I always run away. Here’s to that day, whenever it may come.

 

[edit: what's weird is that the word count was originally 666. Kinda scary.]

If you remember I told you guys about the Guild Wars 2 ambassador contest a couple weeks ago. Today was judgement day (Harold Camping got it all wrong).

I was at work when the announcement came. I had been checking my phone, looking for that little notification symbol, hoping to see a message from Twitter that Arena Net had revealed the winners. It came during the busiest time of the day. As I opened the text I saw the link. My heart was beating so fast, my breath was short. I had to put the phone away before I fell over! The kitchen needed more chicken cooked so I had to swallow my anxiety and get my job done. At last a break came and I walked to the stock room to be alone. I opened the link, watched as the page loaded, and slowly scrolled down. I moved past the pleasantries at the beginning and came to the edge of the cliff: the grand prize winners.

I went slow. The first grand prize winner was from Norway. “Neat,” I thought. I scrolled down. The second grand prize winner was…a mock newscast.

I scrolled quickly through the rest of the winners. My video was nowhere in sight. I was crushed.

I’m still bummed about it. I thought my video was one of the best. And the rules where so vague it appeared to give a lot of room. They chose videos that gave tons of information, and (understandably) got rid of videos that had misleading information. Mine had clear info and only one slightly vague line (“With the ability to swap stats”). The concept of stat transferring has been confirmed but not talked about much, so I don’t know what they thought.

Either way, it hit me pretty hard. Putting a video out for public viewing puts the creator in a vulnerable place. For me each video is part of me, and any rejection or failure is a reflection on me. It hurts, that’s for sure.

It confirms a lot though. The fact that I still feel driven to make films is proof that this is the right path. I don’t think I’ve had success yet but filming makes me feel alive, so I have to keep doing it. But what’s bad is the temptation to still take the easy path. I could easily just be some camera guy filming local television. I mean, its got a piece of my dream, right? But I would rather do nothing than do half my dream.

I’ll be back to 100% soon enough. I just thought I’d share a little about this with you guys. It’s uncharted territory for me, having my heart wrung out like that, but it’s exciting. I’ve been here now and I’ll go through territory similar soon enough, but it’s all part of the grand story. And that makes me excited. But for now I’m going to sleep.

Onward!

The Hangover Part II premiere in Atlantic Station

So this is awesome: I got to go to the premiere of The Hangover Part II this past Tuesday. I’m working with an online magazine (you can find the blog here) alongside Michael as the videographer and all around cool guy. Michael has been writing movie reviews for the blog and a representative from Warner Bros. saw the reviews and loved them! So they invited us to come to the premiere and do our thang. Check the vid:

The whole event was really fun. I think that I would love to continue doing this. I think I shall.

R.I.P. Randy Savage. It was the end of your world.

If you don’t know about Harold Camping and his shenanigans by now you probably live under a rock. But if you’re under a rock how are you reading this? Let me be the first to welcome you to the surface. But be warned, people here are a bit insane, they take themselves way to seriously, and they often make more of things than they should. Because they are bored. With that said, always look both ways before you cross the street and have a nice surface life!

In all seriousness I feel compelled to interject my own thoughts into the hurricane of opinion because I think I have some fact and wisdom that will help. Christians have always found ways to get themselves in the spotlight. Unfortunately in the last 1500+ years it’s been due to our foolishness. Somehow we can’t stop. And in the last 50 years its been worse, thanks to the invention of worldwide media like television, email, and now social networks. I believe this is all due to one of two things: 1)we take ourselves too seriously and 2)we are bored with our lives.

“Woah there buddy I love Jesus and he is my satisfaction and my strong tower, I’m not bored I’ve found all I ever wanted!” Oh ok that’s cool me too. Except I haven’t. Not because I don’t love Jesus, not because he isn’t enough. He is. But I don’t know how to be completely satisfied in him like that. I’m learning, but by no means would I say that I’m completely satisfied, only because I keep walking away from the source.

And I know you do it to. Do you know how I know? Because you are here, reading this. Which means you still sin. Which means you still walk away from Jesus.

And when we walk away from Jesus it puts all the responsibility of living a “Christian life” on our shoulders. Suddenly we are in charge of converting others. It becomes our job to kill sin in our lives. It’s up to us to make the hard decisions and if we choose wrong we mess up our entire life plan. All of these are thoughts I’ve had at one point or another. And when I think that way I take myself too seriously.

When I take myself too seriously I get bored because life is now under my control (so it seems) and under my control there is no magic to being alive. It’s all survival and comfort. It falls on me to make sure I make the right choice when hard decisions come up. It is my responsibility to convert people, and if they aren’t converting I must not be doing it right! And as for my sin, well if I’m still struggling then I must not be fighting enough. After it’s all said and done I’m bored because I’ve spent all my time trying to make life happen and no time enjoying it.

This causes christian people to start doing things like “blitzing” neighborhoods with tracts and buying into crazy schemes of world ending proportions. We try so hard to make the christian life more than it is because we aren’t really experiencing it. When we don’t experience it we trade it in for other experiences and become either lazy or pharisaical in our faith.

So to all my brothers and sisters, please stop and check, and experience the life God bought for us. It will take a lot of stress off of you and hopefully start allowing us to portray the true christ to the world, not the one we have to break our own bones to portray.

That’s when it hit me (and by “it” I mean “that guy over there”)

Quick insert: I hope you get to read this before the world ends! And if it doesn’t then hey, there’s plenty more to come. Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

The dust had settled and things were seemingly moving towards normality. We were able to ascertain some mattresses thanks to some generous friends and family which was good since we had been sleeping on couches that weren’t quite made for such matters.  Through our church at the time I connected with a Mr. Charlie Crews, owner-operator of the best Chick-Fil-A in town. Once he knew what it was we were trying to do he joined up full force, asking for any way to help.

Well, we need money…

So he hired me before I left for Thailand, securing me a place when I get back in August. It wasn’t hard to get into the flow of things at work, I was the do boy and that was that, haha. Mike was having a little more trouble finding a job because his main focus was doing ministry on campus. Ministry brings weird time schedules, if you were unaware. So here we are, working and trying to get life together in our little hood, and things were good.

We hadn’t met anyone yet but it had only been a week so it wasn’t a big thing, we were new and there would be plenty of time for that. And we still had friends who did college things (and I still love doing college things, 3 years later). One of those things is First Fridays. “First Friday” is the name given collectively to the events that go on down town on the first Friday of each month. All the stores and restaurants open up, musicians come in and chalk out their territory, and the whole town comes to play. First Fridays can be really fun, especially when the rest of the month is boring. Boring tends to be the way of things here.

It was right before the First Friday of August when things got crazy.

Mike and I came home to get dressed up. As we were walking to our apartment we passed a group of young men.

“Damn, the Backstreet Boys moved in!”

We laughed, and kept moving. The men were partaking in recreational drinking and possibly more, and we had to be somewhere, so we decided to leave that alone for now. Shortly after we came inside though there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find two of the men. One shall be further referred to as Crazy Eyes, due to the off-kilter look that was in his eyes. The other seemed a nice fellow.

“Hey, whats up?” I asked.

“Can I borrow some sugar?”

What? Crazy Eyes just asked me for sugar? Um…what? I was totally thrown off. And in all honesty I was still pretty inexperienced with black culture, much less ghetto culture, so I thought “Maybe he’s going to make some cool-aid.”

I know right? I’ve come a long way since then.

So I get this dude a cup of sugar.

“When do you want the cup back?” CE asked.

“Well we’re going downtown tonight so you can bring it back tomorrow, that would be fine.”

“How bout now?”

This guy smashed the cup on the ground, shattering the porcelain and spreading sugar across my porch.

“WHAT NOW MOTHER FUCKER?”

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I wasn’t scared because I was still trying to put everything together. Did that really just happen? What is this guy going to do? The other guy who came over was just as shocked. He had no idea this was going to happen, and he pulled Craze off the porch. I shut and locked the door.

What. the. hell. just. happened.

Mike had heard the whole thing go down, and found him filming the guys, to get their faces on film in case anything else went down. Man that guy is smart. That’s why he’s my roomie! And my discipler. And friend.

Anyway I go back out to sweep up the mess. I look at the guys, they look at me. I’m wary that they might try something so I never turn my back to them. As I sweep Crazy Eyes chimes in again.

“You’re a bitch! You hear me? You’re a bitch!”

What do you say to something like that? So I sweep up and go back inside. We decide not to let some hoods ruin our night so we finish getting dressed and head out. As we walk past the men one of them asks us

“Do you really live there?”

Woah, a civil question. They look like they are interested now. Maybe we can make  a connection here, move past the craziness of earlier. So we stop and answer. They ask questions and we answer, that’s how it was going. Suddenly Crazy Eyes jumps up and asks

“Are you serious?”

“What do you mean?”

“ARE YOU SERIOUS?”

“I don’t know what you mean so I can’t answer man.”

It was true. I didn’t know what he meant and the wrong answer could sent this discourse down a road I didn’t want to walk on. All the guys had stood up now, a couple of them asking questions, trying to ignore their crazy eyed friend. There was one dude standing in the back with his head down. He kept mumbling “You need to go.” I kept my eye on him while trying to keep conversation up with the rest of the guys. One of them hears me mention Albany and he gets excited. He grew up there, and was planning on going back.

“Yeah, I’m fro…” And that’s when it hit me. And by it I mean that guy over there.

“Yeah, I’m fro…” I found myself being picked up by a frantic Michael and escorted to the car. The world was a daze as I tried to figure out what happened. The guys where yelling at us but I only heard the noise of their voices. We reached the car and Mike kept saying

“Give me your keys!”

He put me in the car and ran around to the other side. As he pulled into the street Crazy Eyes ran up and kicked the back bumper, cussing at us.

“Did he just kick my car?” I asked? A moment later I guess my brain had logged back in and my face suddenly felt like the backside of the moon. The pain enveloped me and my sight went out again.

“Did I get punched?!”

Mike responded but I didn’t really hear much of what he said because of the deafening pain.

“My tooth. He chipped my tooth!”

My face was throbbing and I still couldn’t believe that that had just happened. Mike drove us to the downtown area to meet our friends and figure out what to do next. One of our friends was the son of a nurse, who happened to be there that night. She sat me down and looked me over, made sure I didn’t have a concussion or anything. I didn’t, so that was good.

We ended up staying the night at a friends place. I was too scared to go back that night. I imagined them ransacking my apartment, or laying in wait to finish the job. Everyone asked if I would call the cops. I made the decision not to. It was my first week living there. I knew that worse things went on, and if I wanted to gain the trust of my neighbors then I did not need to be the white guy who calls the cops every time something crazy happens.

From Mike’s angle the whole encounter was just as intense. It was the dude who had been mumbling “You need to go” who punched me. He decked me good too. Mike said I dropped like a bag of potatoes. Sexy potatoes though.

And when the guy hit me he said everything froze. Mike tensed up, thinking he was about to get jumped. The whole group froze, taken back by what had happened. They all looked at each other, no one sure what to do next. As Mike was taking me to the car the guy who punched me said

“You good?”

I know right?! And Crazy Eyes chimed in too, asking if we had a gun.

I later found out that one of the guys in the group was the son of my neighbor and that I had invited him in for dinner unawares. He never said anything about it, which means he was either unsure of the sensitivity or he had been too stoned to remember much.